In Rethas Song: A Rhapsody of the Soul, Retha hears her God, the sun, speak to her for the first time at the age of seven. He speaks of a baby boy being born who lived far away from her and is her beloved. As long as she listens to Gods voice and stays on her path and the young boy stays on his path, with Gods guidance, they will meet. She strays many times from the voice of God and her path. During the journey, she is struck with a devastating Bipolar Disorder, and her young son is diagnosed with Crohns disease, which nearly took his life. Her faith began taking new direction, and she began experiencing phenomenal supernatural events in her life. Her intuition became increasingly powerful; however, internal, mind-altering suffering kept plaguing her. Music, directed by the angels, was the compelling force that was the interwoven thread that could bring these two souls together, as they are both singers and songwriters. Could a miracle happen?

Many scholars and church leaders believe that music and worship style are essential in stimulating diversity in congregations. Gerardo Marti draws on interviews with more than 170 congregational leaders and parishioners, as well as his experiences participating in worship services in a wide variety of Protestant, multiracial Southern Californian churches, to present this insightful study of the role of music in creating congregational diversity. Worship across the Racial Divide offers a surprising conclusion: that there is no single style of worship or music that determines the likelihood of achieving a multiracial church. Far more important are the complex of practices of the worshipping community in the production and absorption of music. Multiracial churches successfully diversify by stimulating unobtrusive means of interracial and interethnic relations; in fact, preparation for music apart from worship gatherings proves to be just as important as its performance during services. Marti shows that aside from and even in spite of the varying beliefs of attendees and church leaders, diversity happens because music and worship create practical spaces where cross-racial bonds are formed. This groundbreaking book sheds light on how race affects worship in multiracial churches. It will allow a new understanding of the dynamics of such churches, and provide crucial aid to church leaders for avoiding the pitfalls that inadvertently widen the racial divide.

The Love Song of André P Brink is the first biography of this major South African novelist who, during his lifetime, was published in over 30 languages and ranked with the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, Peter Carey and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Leon de Kock's eagerly awaited account of Brink's life is richly informed by a previously unavailable literary treasure: the dissident Afrikaner's hoard of journal-writing, a veritable chronicle that was 54 years in the making. In this massive new biographical source – running to a million words – Brink does not spare himself, or anyone else for that matter, as he narrates the ups and downs of his five marriages and his compulsive affairs with a great number of women. These are precisely the topics that the rebel in both politics and sex skated over in his memoir, A Fork in the Road. De Kock's biographical study of the author who came close to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature not only synthesises the journals but also subjects them to searching critical analysis. In addition, the biographer measures the journals against additional sources, both scholarly and otherwise, among them the testimony of Brink's friends, family, wives and lovers. The Love Song of André P Brink subjects Brink's literary legacy to a bracing scholarly re-evaluation, making this major new biography a crucial addition to scholarship on Brink.

One of the few books of its kind, Acting Up and Getting Down brings together seven African American literary voices that all have a connection to the Lone Star state. Covering Texas themes and universal ones, this collection showcases often-overlooked literary talents to bring to life inspiring facets of black theatre history. Capturing the intensity of racial violence in Texas, from the Battle of San Jacinto to a World War I–era riot at a Houston training ground, Celeste Bedford Walker’s Camp Logan and Ted Shine’s Ancestors provide fascinating narratives through the lens of history. Thomas Meloncon’s Johnny B. Goode and George Hawkins’s Br’er Rabbit explore the cultural legacies of blues music and folktales. Three unflinching dramas (Sterling Houston’s Driving Wheel, Eugene Lee’s Killingsworth, and Elizabeth Brown-Guillory’s When the Ancestors Call) examine homosexuality, a death in the family, and child abuse, bringing to light the private tensions of intersections between the individual and the community. Supplemented by a chronology of black literary milestones as well as a playwrights’ canon, Acting Up and Getting Down puts the spotlight on creative achievements that have for too long been excluded from Texas letters. The resulting anthology not only provides new insight into a regional experience but also completes the American story as told onstage.

Love's Spirit To the Cherokee who raised her she was "Wanders Lost," a white orphan in a land ravaged by revolution. To the Moravains of Salem, North Carolina, she was Mary Margaretha, a spirited young woman barely civilized by her years among their prim sisters. To rugged Jacob Blum she was Retha, his new bride, a blazing beauty who stirred his blood. Love's Promise Drawn by a passion that matched Jacob's own, Retha wanted nothing more than to be a loving wife. Yet before she could completely give herself to Jacob, she had to overcome the ghost of her mysterious past, a past whose memories made her tremble at the very touch she so deeply craved.

The interviews in this book tell the musicians fascinating stories of growing up in rural and urban Namibia. They capture the extreme difficulties, and the rewards of carving out musical careers in a beautiful, desert-like country of immense diversity. The musicians lived with the reality of apartheid and the intense struggle for Namibian independence. They pursued their passion for music through listening, performing, teaching and studying music. The interviews included Jackson Kaujeua, Namibian music legend, and Minette Mans, internationally known music educator and researcher. The stories ranged from musics role in the independence struggle, to village ritual music and dance, to international travel to perform and teach, to singing in church choirs. Preserving traditional Namibian music was a theme throughout the interviews.